


The Fourth Week of June

by scarlett_the_seachild



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Coming Out, M/M, Ronan has a lot of complicated feelings, complicated feelings, dealing with grief, graphic description of a dead body, just guys being bros, really he just needs a hug, sort of pre-quel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6913060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlett_the_seachild/pseuds/scarlett_the_seachild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The fall after Ronan and Gansey had become friends, the summer before Adam, they'd spent half their time hunting for Glendower and the other half hauling junk out of the second floor.</i>
</p><p>A documentation of Ronan and Gansey's friendship in the early days, where Gansey is oblivious and Ronan is figuring things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fourth Week of June

**Author's Note:**

> An exercise in “how Ronan was before”, because I also wish I’d known him then (basically my excuse for anything OOC.) Prepare for mindlessly self-indulgent Arthurian mythology and also, my favourite game, "let's see how many Fight Club references we can cram into this bitch."
> 
> First Raven Cycle fanfic, please let me know what you think!

Ronan could think of a lot of Latin words to describe Monmouth Manufacturing, and they all began with “a”.

 _Acerbus:_ bitter, gloomy, dark. There was only so much electricity as to light a single bulb on the second floor, plunging every corner of the warehouse into a din of cobwebby shadows, apart from that single smug spot dangling from its ropy wire. The windows had all been boarded up; thick, heavy, planks nailed aggressively across what once must have been rather nice windows, until boys and their stone-shaped egos had shattered most of the panelling. Long fingers of light still tried to squeeze through the gaps in the shoddy carpentry, illuminating the air glittering with dust and fiberglass, but it did little to soften the grim, shady, despondency of the place.

Ronan studied the shadows and kicked the remains of a broken chair out the way. There was a small electricity box behind the cardboard stack, hidden under a thick mesh of spider-web. Ronan blew and feathers fluttered in his face.

“I found the Grail,” he announced.

He brushed off the last of the webs and squinted to see the ancient box more clearly. Behind him, Gansey had reappeared from where he had been standing in front of the enormous windows, legs apart and hands on his hips, like God surveying the Earth and thinking that he had his work cut out for him.

“Good work knight,” he said.

Ronan smirked. Gansey stuck his hands in the pockets of his chinos and walked a half-circle around the warehouse, keen eyes tracing over every box, every loose nail, every plank of wood. The floorboards creaked with his steps, adjusting to accommodate his weight. Ronan watched him semi-casually, one arm looped over the newly discovered electricity box. He wondered if this really was how God had looked at the beginning of the seven days; sleeves rolled up, expression thoughtful, clothing vastly inappropriate for heavy lifting and general crap removal.

Gansey paused in front of the enormous stack of plywood-scattered junk, that is to say, what was Monmouth. _Acervus._ Heap. “We’ll start here,” he gestured, which was to say, anywhere.

They approached the pile cautiously, knights indeed, mindful of waking their monstrous enemy. Then without further hesitation they began to haul, lifting the junk and carrying it down the stairs towards the lot below.

“Any plans to recycle this shit?” asked Ronan, struggling to make connection with the steps from over his crap pile.

Gansey pointed vaguely. “Just stick it over here,” he replied. “We’ll burn it later.”

Ronan raised an eyebrow. “No environmental points for you, Mr President,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure impromptu shithouse barbecues are illegal in the state of West Virginia.”

Gansey shrugged as best as he could while holding most of a desk. “No one’s here.”

Ronan said nothing and although Gansey had not known him very long, he had gathered enough to know that the silence meant he was impressed.

They returned upstairs and then down again, steadily transferring one junk pile into another a floor below. Meanwhile, Gansey told Ronan about Arthur and Llewyn and of course, Glendower. The stories were part history and part mythology and Ronan, the Celtic son of a would-be poet, appreciated them greatly. He was less interested in their historical merit than he could tell Gansey was but the magic he liked, as well as the offhanded way Gansey wove it into the tales, as if it were just another battle or political skirmish. He talked of spells and prophecies and enchanted ravens with the matter-of-fact tone of a historian, and Ronan, who had had his fair share of mysteries, was impossibly hooked.

“So what happens if you don’t find him, then?” asked Ronan after Gansey had just finished telling of Glendower’s battle with the goddess, Rhiannon.

Gansey blinked up at him in surprise. “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “I hadn’t given the matter much thought, to be honest.” He hesitated, thinking carefully about his next words as if he were worried they would scare Ronan away. “Have you ever felt like you were born to do something?”

Ronan waved one of the wooden arms of a chair he had accidentally torn off. “Like dismembering shit-ugly modernist furniture?”

“A little bigger than that. No offence.”

Ronan busied himself with dragging the old armchair onto the heap, carefully avoiding Gansey’s gaze. “Easy Napoleon,” he said. “If I’ve managed to befriend a megalomaniac, I’d rather you told me now.”

Gansey laughed. It was an open, easy thing, all crinkly eyes and wide lines and it should not have done to Ronan the things that it did. “I think you’re ok,” he assured him. “Just a nerd with a lot of time on his hands.”

They worked for hours, lugging crates and sifting boxes until the sky above them turned dusky mauve. By six o’clock both boys were sweating, sleeves bunched round aching muscles like bandages on war wounds. Gansey crawled into the boot of the Camaro and re-emerged, carrying two bottles of Coca-Cola from a cooler, wet and frosted with condensation. He handed one to Ronan and they drank them like beer, sat on the low wall around the factory, two kings surveying a newly conquered battlefield. The sun hit the back of Ronan’s neck, prickling the moisture there. He could feel it tingling on his skin.

“This is going to be a fucking palace,” he told Gansey.

Instead of replying right away, Gansey took a swig of his coke, looking pensive. “It needs a lot of work,” he said finally.

Ronan shrugged. “Work is easy.”

“I’ll need a lot of help.”

It took Ronan a moment to understand that this was Gansey posing a question. The realisation was a little surprising; didn’t he know that already Ronan was prepared to do whatever he asked of him? He made sure to make his shrug appropriately indifferent. “I’ve got a lot of muscle.”

Gansey offered his fist and Ronan bumped it with his own. They drank their cokes in silence, watching the sun disappear behind the warehouse roof.

oOo

Making friends with Richard Gansey had not been a conscious decision, not as it had been with Ronan’s other friends. Ronan had never been short of people who liked him, admired him, wanted to be him or be near him. Dagger-sharp, swaggering, boasting with fiery energy and Irish curse words _(“feck!”),_ only fifteen and already he could be found hanging out with a bunch of older, ruffian types outside one of Henrietta’s many 7-11s. One of the “cool kids” and he didn’t even have to try, didn’t have to do anything except be himself, (which often meant being unnecessarily rude to teachers; “honesty” as he insisted.) When people said “Ronan”, it often sounded like they meant to say “Excuse me” or “Sorry”. It was funny, in a way, how the waves parted for him.

When Gansey had come to Henrietta, Ronan spotted the car first.

Weeks later and Ronan wasn’t even sure how they had met. He had a vague recollection of an exchanged smirk in Latin. Another of a stilted, tentative conversation, held as they waited for their respective people outside a bus stop. Another: _“What do you know about Welsh kings?” “As much as you do about step-dancing”_  and before he had time to think about what was happening, Gansey was opening the passenger door of the Camaro and Ronan was sliding in beside him, respective friends forgotten.

“Where to?” Ronan asked, yanking on his seat belt.

Gansey jerked his thumb over his shoulder, meaning for Ronan to grab the journal that was laying on the passenger seat. “Barrows,” he replied. “Burial ground.”

“Badass,” added Ronan.

Gansey chuckled. Ronan reached for the journal, trying to hold it in a way that seemed casual and offhand whilst also respecting it for the tender thing that it was. (Rewind to months ago, Ronan’s hands searching for binoculars and accidentally settling on warm leather. ‘What’s this?’ ‘Oh…erm…just something I’ve been working on.’ ‘Can I see?’ ‘…Yes. Yes, why not.’) He thumbed the well-worn pages, relishing in the knowledge that he was the only other person to do this. Running a practiced finger along the slender spine it fell open on the exact right page, as if he had commanded it so. He felt a warm glow inside him. It was such a simple thing, to possess a soul.

“What are we looking for?” asked Ronan, not because he really needed to know but because it had been at least five hours since Gansey had told him a story.

At once, Gansey launched into a long and animated explanation of the significance of ley lines and burial mounds in folklore and how the geography of this particular site coincided with the road the Welsh would likely have taken when carrying Glendower’s body. Ronan asked questions in the rare moments that he paused for breath and Gansey would answer them with renewed energy and excitement, as if that had been the very thing he had wanted Ronan to ask. In the background the Pig hummed noisily, as if confirming its own views on the conversation and then they were off and away, the shadow of Aglionby growing smaller and smaller behind them.

A couple of hours later, Gansey parked the Pig and the two of them shouldered rucksacks containing map, field binoculars and bottled water before starting on the hiking trail. It was the very first week of June and already the trees were heavy with the beginnings of new fruit. Ronan could smell it in the air, the initial tang that comes with the promise of later sweetness, behind the stronger scent of leaves and damp earth. It reminded him of The Barns. He trudged along happily behind Gansey, content to listen to the birds and the muddy, uneven splashing of a brook somewhere and thought that actually, what this place really reminded him of were his dreams.

“Don’t your family think you’re crazy?” he asked Gansey as they walked. “Doesn’t your dad think you should be more into sports or Al Pacino movies or…or…”

“Muscle cars?” Gansey suggested with irony.

“Haha,” said Ronan. “But I mean, come on. You’ve got to be the freak of your household.”

Gansey gave him a sidelong glance, a slight crease appearing between his eyebrows. “Do _you_ think I’m a freak?”

He sounded genuinely concerned. Immediately, Ronan was nervous; knowing he was asking for sincerity, he wondered how he could give it without losing face. “Well yeah,” he shrugged. “Dude, your car is fucking _orange.”_

“Vermilion,” Gansey corrected him. “And yes, I guess I must be. They’re nice about it though, although it would be a little rich to be otherwise. Considering dad’s thing for old cars that don’t work, mom’s obsession with glassware and Helen’s collection of other people’s lives, Glendower is positively banal. It wouldn’t matter anyway. We’re all very polite to each other in the Gansey family.”

Ronan snorted. “Politicians,” he mocked playfully. “You’ve got all the tricks, Mr President. All we need to do is keep a tight lid on the fact that you’re actually a terrifying monomaniac and next term’s in the bag.”

Gansey laughed. “Just don’t start calling me ‘Ahab’,” he said. “Anyway, what does all this say about you? _You’re_ the one who sided with the freak the moment he showed up in town with his Alfred Watkins and his ridiculous vermilion car.”

Ronan tried to look scathing. “Please,” he said derisively. “It was _at least_ two months.”

“Whatever. You were pretty quick to accept all of this. Or does Declan also harbour a secret interest in all things paranormal?”

“The only secret interest Declan harbours concerns the accounts and affairs of older married women. And also their husbands, but that’s more to do with ammo for public image than anything seedier.”

“Evasion, Lynch.”

“Ok man, God,” Ronan rolled his eyes. “I’m the fucking black sheep, seeing as you’re dying for me to say it.”

Gansey fixed him with a solemn gaze. “You’re not least loved, Ronan.”

Ronan snorted again. “Who the hell said anything about least loved?”

They walked for a long time, the West Virginian countryside passing hazily by in the smudged oil paint greens and reds of perpetual autumn. Then suddenly, Gansey seized Ronan’s arm.

“There,” he said, voice urgent. “What’s that?”

Trying not to pay too much attention to the heat and pressure of Gansey’s grip on his arm, Ronan peered through the gaps in the trees to where a curiously shaped slab of grey rock poked out from amongst the greenery. It was curved and perfectly smooth, as if it had been sanded down. Gansey and Ronan cleared away the branches and shrubbery that obscured it and Ronan saw that it was not a slab of rock at all, but the crumbling wing of an enormous stone bird.

The head was missing. Gansey approached it cautiously, sticking out a reverential hand to touch the cool stone of the statue. His fingertips grazed over the bird’s belly where a scroll unfurled over the rigid feathers. _“Brenin,”_ he read.

“What does it mean?” asked Ronan uneasily. He was not sure why, but the sight of the huge, vaguely anthropomorphic creature was more discomforting to him than it was impressive.

There was no apprehension in Gansey’s face however when he turned round to look over his shoulder. His eyes were shining with excitement, bright as the earth in a pool of summer sunlight.

“It means ‘king’,” he replied.

oOo

Gansey dropped Ronan home, and then Gansey drove away. That night, Ronan could not get the image of the enormous stone bird with the broken off head out of his mind. Every time he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, Gansey’s voice would crawl into his ear: _“Brenin,”_ it whispered. “ _It means king.”_

The bird had not looked like a king to Ronan. The bird had looked like one of the little painted devils in the Revelations chapter of his Bible. But Ronan had not wanted to point this out to Gansey, who had seemed so pleased at finding the ugly fucking thing.

Ronan turned to lie on his back, staring up at the ceiling with his hands clasped over his stomach. There was a part of Ronan, the part that responded to everything Gansey thought or said or did, that had been very pleased too. A part of him that was still very pleased. He smiled at the memory; Gansey’s hands brushing away the leaves and dead bracken to discover…something. An ugly something for sure, but it was a something that no one else might have set a cool, trembling hand on in over a hundred years. It was the sort of thing you couldn’t find unless you were already looking for something else, something bigger, as if it had been put there to tell you that you were going along the right way. As if finding it somehow made you worthy.

Ronan was worthy. And not just for finding a headless chicken. Ronan was worthy because Gansey thought he was.

 _Brenin. King._ The future was written. Gansey could have chosen anyone to share his dream with, his glory and destiny and he had chosen Ronan, or the Universe had chosen Ronan for him.

Either way, he felt like he had swallowed sunlight.

He fell asleep to the sound of rushing feathers and in the morning when he woke up, he held a tiny model car in his hand. He didn’t know what make it was but it wasn’t unlike a Camaro. When he turned the wheel with his finger, it played a tune.

oOo

Over the next few days they split their time equally between the Glendower hunt and clearing out the first floor of Monmouth Manufacturing. Most of the crap had been moved into the empty parking lot below and it was now more than ever possible to see the potential the place had hidden. When the last of the plywood had been burned into cinders Ronan found himself staring at the sheer _space_ of it, the wideness and the vastness. The light pouring through the newly repaired windows, illuminating the arching beams and rafters that supported the ceiling, cathedral-like. The modest beauty of it struck him in a way that was almost holy.

A couple of days after the barrow expedition, Gansey told Ronan how he had died.

As with all things, he was straightforward, factual. He delivered the information in the same way that he had informed Ronan that he was seeking to wake a seven-hundred year old king and was allergic to bee stings (“Hey look man, you made a friend!” “Oh Christ, get it off.” “Dude chill, he’s cool-” “No, seriously, Ronan, if it stings me I will die.”) Being Catholic, Ronan was no stranger to the concept of resurrection. Being Niall Lynch’s son, he knew that the line between what was possible for a man and what was possible for a God was not so firmly drawn. Even so, this was rather a lot to take in.

“Fuck,” breathed Ronan at last.

“I mean, yes,” Gansey agreed.

“No, but seriously,” said Ronan. _“Fuck.”_

He sat down on an upturned wastepaper basket, rubbing his face with is hands. Gansey remained standing, scuffing his feet bashfully against the floorboards. Ronan couldn’t see whether or not he regretted telling him. The way he was holding himself suggested him to be very far away from Monmouth Manufacturing.

“So that’s why,” said Ronan finally, after the silence had nearly become unbearable. “That’s the reason you have to find him.”

Gansey looked up and his expression was so full of relief and gratitude that Ronan was momentarily stunned. “Yes,” he murmured gratefully, eyes wide. “I have to find him. I have to find out why…why _me,_ of all people. What did he save me for? What must I do in return?”

Ronan blew out a low whistle and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long; just the other day his mother had said that he was looking like a young Van Morrison. “Fucking _Christ,”_ he exhaled. “God. When I said you had a messiah complex I hadn’t banked on you actually being the messiah.”

Gansey gave him a look. “I am _not_ the messiah,” he said firmly.

Ronan made an acquiescing gesture. “You are, however, a very naughty boy,” he said, because compulsory. “For not telling me sooner. We just tramped through the motherfucking countryside, man. Nature’s supposed to be crawling with that lethal shit.”

“You already knew I was allergic to stings,” Gansey pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know they’d actually already _killed_ you! I thought you were talking hypothetically, rather than from past fucking experience!”

“Calm down,” Gansey suggested.

Ronan thought this was rather easy for him to say. What he didn’t understand was that of everything that Gansey had told him so far, this was the hardest for Ronan to believe. Not so much that Gansey had come back from the dead, but the fact that Gansey was actually capable of dying in the first place.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in silence, mostly lost in their own thoughts. Ronan’s mind was reeling with what Gansey had told him and amongst the shock a tiny seed of guilt had also managed to assert itself. He was pressingly aware that Gansey had just confided in him a secret that he had never shared with another living soul. Meanwhile here was Ronan, who could barely trust himself with his own secrets, let alone another person. The faith Gansey had built on him was a burden he didn’t know how to rise up to and as they worked, Gansey sending him encouraging little smiles through the flames of burning junk, shame gnawed on his insides.

As always, they saw the car first.

“Oh shit,” Ronan swore softly. “Cops.”

“I’ll handle this,” said Gansey.

The cops wore sunglasses and, in Ronan’s opinion, they were much less scary than the ones who didn’t. However, they were still cops and what Gansey and Ronan were doing was still thoroughly illegal.

“Alright boys,” one of them said, with a moustache to complete the look. “That’s enough. We’ve had complaints.”

“Complaints from _who?”_ demanded Ronan. There was nobody around, and certainly no one had come by to stop them until now.

The cop shifted his feet. “People.”

“Officers,” said Gansey, with a glance to Ronan that said _Shut up._ “Please, let me explain.”

Gansey explained. Ronan wasn’t sure exactly _what_ he said apart from the truth of it; that he was newly arrived in Henrietta, that the building was his own, that he’d bought if for cash. Miraculously, the cops listened. Suddenly they were nodding, and the next thing he knew they were rolling their sleeves up and climbing out of the car, swaggering over to the heaviest loads of furniture and helping to haul them onto the bonfire. Gansey winked at Ronan, patting him on the shoulder as he stood, staring in dumb paralysis at one of the officers, grabbing the tank of gasoline and loading more onto the flames.

At that moment, Ronan truly understood what it meant to be Richard Gansey. When you have already died once before, everything afterwards becomes an exercise in “why not.”

oOo

The second week of June, Gansey and Ronan went from school straight to The Barns. Ronan had invited him and Gansey, who was always touchingly overjoyed to see people in their natural habitat, accepted instantly.

Matthew was home, as was Declan and Aurora. Ronan hugged two out of the three while Gansey waved and bobbed his head in his polite, diplomatic way. Aurora, however, was unwilling to let him get away with just that.

“Gansey,” she said warmly, folding him into a familial embrace as if he were a third son.

Gansey returned the hug somewhat awkwardly, shook Declan’s hand and ruffled Matthew’s curls before pulling a face at Ronan, who was watching with an expression of mixed exasperation and amusement.

“I think my family like you more than they like me,” he informed him as Gansey followed him up the stairs to his room.

“Well, they’re only human,” replied Gansey and laughed, mistaking Ronan’s wince for something comical.

Niall Lynch was not home. In fact, Gansey had only seen him once or twice of the many times he had frequented Ronan’s house. You usually heard him before you saw him, whistling a jaunty tune or else singing something sweet and sad in his strong, powerful voice. Then you saw him; the bright eyes, the charismatic smile, the ruddy face, all larger than life. Ronan’s face but wider about the jaw, and connecting to a prize fighter’s body, the belly of which was only slightly going to seed. Niall Lynch was never home, except when he was, and when he was he let you know it.

Ronan stepped aside and let Gansey open the door to his room. Inside was the usual clutter; old toys, baseball gloves, punching bags, abandoned instruments, children’s books. Gansey had learned early on that Ronan never threw anything away, if he could help it. He moved a battered copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ from the desk chair so that he could sit down while Ronan collapsed onto the bed.

“Ugh,” he said into the duvet, with feeling.

His long hair fanned out around him, dark against the soft white of the pillow. Gansey fished out a rubber band ball from somewhere and began bouncing it lightly against the wall.

“I didn’t know Declan was still living here,” he said. “I thought he was boarding.”

Ronan made a whining noise that sounded more likely to come from a wounded creature than a human person. “He decided to stick around,” he muttered darkly. “Like a bad smell.”

Gansey laughed loyally. “Why?”

Ronan didn’t say anything for a long while and Gansey was worried he had intruded on something. But then he said, “He thinks we can’t cope without him, when dad’s not around.”

Gansey’s forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Why not?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how much there was to “cope” with in the Lynch household. Matthew was nearly thirteen and Ronan, despite his punk rock aspirations, knew when to reign himself in. In any case, Aurora appeared to be a fairly responsible adult, if a little ditsy, and capable enough of handling any trouble.

“I know, right?” Ronan groaned. “Fucking Dicklan.”

Gansey rolled his eyes, taking some offence at the corruption of ‘Dick’. “He’s not _that_ bad.”

“Nah, he’s not that bad,” Ronan agreed. “Except that he’s a tit. Overcompensation for being the normal one.”

It slipped out of his mouth before he realised what he was saying. Gansey’s frown intensified momentarily before Ronan was warding him off the scent with a wicked smile.

“Anyway,” he said quickly. “Should be seeing less of him soon.”

“Hm?”

“New girlfriend, remember?”

“Ah. Yes,” Gansey nodded and chewed his lip, trying to remember the name. “Stephanie?”

“Abigail. You’re three months late.”

Gansey nodded again. He was not about to bother keeping up with the ebbs and flows of Declan Lynch’s relationships. Declan used women like he used everyone in his life; to serve some purpose or other until that purpose had expired and they were tossed away, like an old credit card. This disgusted Ronan, not out of some conservative contempt for depravity but because he could not comprehend how his brother could love so cheaply, freely, easily. Not when for Ronan, every feeling came as strongly as a third-degree burn.

Ronan fiddled with his nails. The black polish on them was chipping. “You’ve seen her, right?” he said after a while. “Do you think she’s hot?”

Gansey blinked, taken aback by the question and especially by the fact that Ronan was avoiding his gaze. “I…yes?” he attempted. “I suppose so.” He wasn’t exactly sure what a girl had to look like to be considered ‘hot’ by objective standards, here meaning, those of most Aglionby students. The girls Gansey tended to think were pretty didn’t meet the criteria so strictly, all having something a bit odd about the face or personality. But from what little he’d seen of Abigail, he thought she must tick all the right boxes. “Do you?”

Ronan made a sound, like a sharp exhale through his nose. It sounded impatient, as if Gansey had asked entirely the wrong question and missed the point completely. He waved dismissively. “Sure man,” he snarled. “She’s a real peach.”

His voice was harsh, as it often was when he was on the way to defensive or upset. Bewildered, Gansey tried to think what could possibly have caused either of these reactions. “Do you…” he tried, his tongue felt thick in his mouth. He wasn’t good at this, and knew it. “Do you like her, or something?”

He held his breath, waiting for Ronan to come out with something poisonous or sarcastic. What he did not expect, and what perplexed him even more, was for Ronan to start laughing. It was not a pleasant sound, hollow, devoid of humour and undeniably anxious.  Gansey watched him, rocking uncontrollably against the sheets, one eyebrow raised.

“You know you have a kind of sick desperation in your laugh," he said, because someone had to.

“Don’t I know it man,” Ronan replied, his grin a knife slash. He wiped the mirth from his eyes and sat up on the mattress, tucking his knees under his chin. He looked unflinchingly at Gansey and suddenly he wasn’t smiling anymore. “I need to tell you something.”

Gansey waited expectantly, one eyebrow still raised. Ronan opened his mouth, ran a hand through his hair, closed it. He tried again. At that moment, the door flew open and Matthew came bursting in.

“Jesus,” said Gansey, who for a moment was under the impression that they were being set upon by a monstrous golden retriever.

“What the fuck did I say?” Ronan barked. “Knock first, for Christ’s sake.”

“Sorry,” breezed Matthew blithely in his careless, happy way. “PlayStation’s not working. Dicklan is pretending he knows what’s wrong with it, but I can tell he doesn’t.”

At once, Ronan was on his feet. “Don’t let him touch my stuff.” He gestured over his shoulder to Gansey. “Come on.”

Gansey got up to follow him back downstairs where Declan was indeed sitting beside the television, frowning and scratching his head in befuddlement. Gansey stood silently while the Lynch brothers berated each other, growing more curious to know what Ronan had been about to tell him with each vicious exchange. Beneath the angry front Ronan seemed almost glad of the excuse and when they settled on the sofa to play Call of Duty he realised that whatever it was, if Ronan hadn’t told him then it would probably be a long while before he would try again.

oOo

“Ok, so if you were going to fight anyone, who would you fight?”

Gansey straightened up from the fridge he was pushing across the floor of Monmouth to rub his chin philosophically. “Specifically limited to British mytho-history, I’m guessing?”

Ronan rolled his eyes. _“_ Obviously _,”_ he said. “I don’t need to hear about any latent Oedipus Complex, thanks.”

Gansey pondered, running a finger absently over his bottom lip. “Ok then,” he replied at last. “Henry IV.”

Ronan made an unimpressed noise at the back of his throat, as if he had foreseen this answer and found it wanting.

“What about you?” asked Gansey, somewhat defensively.

“Lancelot,” replied Ronan without hesitation.

Gansey looked at him, surprised. “Good God,” he said. “Whatever for?”

Ronan slid out from underneath the boiler he was installing, chucking Gansey the wrench before reaching down to wipe his palms on his jeans.

“Because he was a total wet wipe,” he said. “I mean, I know he’s supposed to be the best swordsman in, like, goddamn medieval England or whatever. But all that stuff with Guinevere? Like, just fucking go for it, man. Stop dicking about. Arthur would have been so cool with it, would probably have offered to adopt their child as heir if he’d quit with the foreplay and just _asked._ But no, he has to pussy about for like, twenty fucking years until Mordred screws him over and he gets all exiled and insane and shit. I don’t know, he just sounds like the kind of guy who would benefit from a really good punch.”

Gansey’s laugh was a breeze of incredulous disbelief. “Oh my God,” he said.

They pushed the refrigerator across the room and straightened it so that it sat next to the dryer and directly opposite the toilet. Gansey slipped round the back and Ronan shone the torch while he wired it.

“You can’t fight Lancelot anyway,” Gansey stated, stepping back to check the circuit.

Ronan’s brow wriggled. “Why not?”

Gansey smiled just as the refrigerator beamed on, bouncing yellow light over the white enamel tiles. “Because he’s _you,”_ he replied. “If I’m Arthur.”

He straightened up, cleaning his hands on a piece of scrap lint before clasping Ronan’s shoulder with mock seriousness. However, the effect was ruined slightly by the twinkle of teasing humour in his eye. “Don’t fight yourself, Ronan,” he said.

oOo

It was the third week of June, and a Thursday, when Ronan came down to the driveway and almost slipped in his father’s brains.

There is a moment before going underwater, and at the point of holding breath, that time stops. Taking breath – the physical act of suspense. When Ronan pushed open the driveway door, everything around him was blue as a swimming pool. He felt a heavy pressing on him from all sides. There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears that he couldn’t place, and apart from that he couldn’t hear much else. Not even his own voice as he called tentatively out loud: “Dad?”

He pushed open the door. Niall Lynch’s body lay spread-eagled beside the wheel of the BMW. It was not at an awkward angle, and for a solid three seconds Ronan was sure that Niall was merely dreaming. Then he saw that half his face had been smashed in.

Ronan took a step forward and nearly slipped.

There were crows on the body. They hovered near the cratered head, sharp beaks clicking. They turned their black, glittering eyes upon Ronan judgementally, as if to say: _Not yours anymore. Ours. Never yours, really._

Ronan stood and waited for the body to sit up, grin at him and pull him close, tell him that death was for lesser men and there was black pudding for breakfast. This did not happen. Ronan waited for the real Niall Lynch to appear from the other side of the BMW, laughing at Ronan’s shock and his own cleverness before asking to help him move the dream body.

This did not happen.

What did happen is this: Ronan did not move for an hour and then Declan came and found him.

The crows flew away.

oOo

“How long has he been like this?”

“Since yesterday morning. I came down and found him, he was just standing there. Didn’t say a word while the police were here, to me or Matthew or to mom. Mom’s pretty much the same, actually. Hasn’t said a goddamn thing since.”

“And Matthew?”

“Just cries. Cries and cries. He’s only a kid, for Christ’s sake. For _Christ’s sake._ Fuck. A tire iron. They got him with a fucking _tire iron._ ”

“Jesus.”

“It’s the _will_ Gansey. The fucking will. We’re to move into Aglionby accommodation, starting imminently. Provisions are being made as we speak. They won’t let us go home. They won’t let us touch anything. Won’t even let us _see_ her. What the fuck do you think that’s going to do to him? To all of us?”

“Declan, listen. I know there’s nothing I can say, but if there’s anything I can do-”

“Ha! If there’s anything Richard Campbell can’t do. Always thinking aren’t you Gansey, always looking out for the littler people. Well no, Gansey, not this time. This isn’t something you can _fix,_ like your warehouse or your orange fucking _car.”_

“Declan-”

“-You want something to do? You want to help? Watch him. I’m going to make a call.”

oOo

Ronan.

Ronan, I’m so sorry.

Can you hear me?

Please come back.

I’m so sorry.

oOo

Ronan did come back. He woke up and took off his hospital gown. Then he took the BMW.

Speed limit is a construct. So is the line between fifth and sixth. Ronan made it so smoothly it made his heart sing.

The engine roared, the leather trembling beneath his hands with raw power and unbridled energy. The BMW felt like a living thing, a live animal of twisted metal and gasoline blood, all jaws and teeth. Ronan laughed and howled into the wind, the battering ram of it through the open window masking the sounds of his gasping sobs. His lungs felt too large for his ribs and he thought his chest was about to shatter at any moment. He entertained the thought of himself splayed out across the dashboard, blood and hair caught messily in the windshield wipers. Indistinguishable from the monster under his fingertips.

It did not take long before the cops were on him. Blue flashing lights lit up his wing mirrors and he thought he caught a glimpse of sunglasses in the reflection above his head. He wondered if they were the same cops that had helped he and Gansey burn all the crap out of Monmouth a hundred years ago.

Even if they were the same cops, they weren’t. Nothing was quite the same now, because Ronan had changed.

oOo

Everything was eerily quiet at the station. After the cataclysmic, Fury Road, car-chasing apocalypse that had been their Sunday afternoon, the resulting exchange with the authorities seemed by contrast anticlimactic. Declan explained the situation to the police, using the same magic that Gansey possessed, the charms unique to aspiring politicians and their sons. He enchanted them all with shoulder clasps and hand gestures, appealing to the humanity that was quick to emerge upon the realisation that these were nice boys, from a good rich family, who had really had a very tough time of it all.

Gansey could hear Declan’s voice from the constable’s office. _Our father…murdered…yes, just three days ago. He was the one who found him…very close…taking it hard…yes, of course I’ll take good care of him…thank you for your understanding._

Ronan sat on the sofa outside the constable’s office, his newly shaved head resting on Gansey’s shoulder. Gansey was stroking the shell of his ear. His knuckles grazed against the raw skin there before brushing against the close-cropped hair. After several times spent running a hand through Ronan’s hair, of ruffling it, of twisting it round his finger, it felt terribly, heart-wrenchingly strange. Ronan was crying silently, his tears slipping down his cheeks to blot Gansey’s cargo pants. Every time Gansey’s knuckles moved downwards, he let out a shaky breath.

At long last, Declan emerged from the other room. He had been aided by the fact that this was an unorthodox situation, and no one wanted to be the first to admit that they didn’t quite know how to handle it. Ronan had not been drinking, after all. They let him keep the car. He shook hands with the officers and accepted their condolences with the perfect amount of dignity and vulnerability. When they were gone, his eyes flitted to Gansey and Ronan, curled up on the sofa. He exhaled sharply through his nose.

“They’re not pressing charges,” he told Gansey.

Gansey nodded. Ronan said nothing. Declan’s gaze roved over Ronan’s newly buzzed head, and then he shook his own. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his trouser suit. For a long time there was silence with Gansey resuming the stroking of Ronan, Ronan crying softly and silently onto Gansey’s cargo pants, Declan looking pointedly at anywhere but Gansey and Ronan. At last he broke, releasing a frustrated sigh.

“God _damnit,”_ he breathed. He rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to check on Matthew.”

When he was gone, Ronan spoke.

“They won’t let me go home.”

His voice was hoarse and croaked from lack of use. Gansey tried not to betray his shock at the sound. Ronan reached up and rubbed his eyes, unconsciously mirroring his brother’s action. Gansey thought about him, living in Aglionby accommodation. Having to wake up every morning to a school dormitory, to look outside his window and see hundreds of students, all looking like him on the outside and absolutely nothing at all like him on the inside. The thought caused a painful pang of distress.

“Come on,” he said, and stood up.

Ronan’s brow furrowed above his red eyes. “Where are we going?”

“Home,” replied Gansey abruptly and then clarified. “Monmouth.”

They left the police station, walking close together so that their shoulders bumped. Gansey climbed into the Pig and Ronan copied him. As Ronan clicked on his seatbelt, he said to Gansey: “I’m gay.”

Gansey started the engine. “I know,” he said.

The Pig stuttered, coughed, cleared its throat and lurched into action. They drove.

oOo

Another word: _abstergo –_ to clean away. Declan had not been wrong about Gansey. He was a recycler indeed, a recycler of souls. He liked to find things; old things, broken things, liked to fix them up and give them new purpose, make them useful again. Monmouth. The Camaro. And now, Ronan. 

Ronan was quite aware of his new status as Gansey’s latest project. In some ways, he found it reassuring. If Gansey thought that Ronan was broken, then Gansey thought that Ronan could be fixed. Through patient determination, persistence and disciplined kindness that bordered on the paternal Gansey could bring back the old Ronan, the one who woke him up after movie marathons by playing the bagpipes at six in the morning, the one who swore without venom, the one who laughed without rancour. The one who smiled without cruelty.

The buzz-cut took some getting used to. “You look like a convict,” he told him, watching Ronan neaten up the sides with Gansey’s razor.

“A convicted badass,” Ronan amended.

“Are you trying to look the part, now that you’ve come out?”

“Spare me Dick,” Ronan snapped. “Didn’t you get the memo? My dad’s supposed to be dead.”

If Ronan had accepted his fate as Gansey’s latest venture, then Gansey had resigned himself to becoming Ronan’s acting parent. Aurora had not spoken since Niall’s murder and as they had heard it was currently lying in a catatonic state, sustained by a drip in the heart of The Barns. None of the Lynch brothers were allowed to visit her anyway, as stated by their father’s will, but that hadn’t stopped Ronan from trying to break every window on the first floor of Monmouth when he had found out.

And Declan…well. Declan was dealing with things as best as he could. Unfortunately, this did not include extending any sort of olive branch towards his younger brother. After Ronan moved into Monmouth he had made it abundantly clear that he was no longer his problem. Gansey’s sympathy had been stirred by a dog turned rabid, now it was his responsibility to leash him or else leave him to self-destruct by his own devices. This conversation had resulted in the biggest argument he had ever had with the eldest Lynch.

After a slammed door and the sound of tyres squealing away, Gansey, huffing with fury, turned to see Ronan leaning nonchalantly against the doorway. He was chewing at five leather bracelets which had recently appeared on his wrists, although Gansey couldn’t say where they had come from.

“I told you he was a tit,” he said.

“Do your homework,” said Gansey.

Quite predictably, the nights were the most difficult. Not only had Ronan’s become haunted with recurrent, blue-tinged images of Niall Lynch soaked in brain matter but the horrors had returned. Ronan’s dreams were marked once again by the carnivorous slash of claws and beak and the unearthly screeches that bayed for his blood. He knew now what the stone statue he and Gansey had found had reminded him of. On the rare nights that he did manage to fall asleep he was forced awake soon after, drenched in sweat and chest heaving as he tried to banish the feeling of long talons ripping at his skin.

When Gansey came home one day to find Ronan installing a lock on his door, he asked no questions.

For Gansey, the nights were bad because the memo he had apparently missed earlier was resent to him with full force. Whenever his insomnia was hitting hard he took to wearing earphones, not because it made the time pass quicker but because it blotted out the sounds of Ronan, sobbing dryly behind his locked bedroom door.

“We need to have a talk,” Gansey announced one morning.

Ronan, who had his headphones on and was picking his feet on the sofa, did not hear him.

“Ronan,” said Gansey, and, when he received no reply, “Lance.”

Ronan yanked one end of his headphones down so that his left ear sprung out. “What?”

In response, Gansey shoved a piece of paper in Ronan’s face. Ronan’s eyes scanned it briefly before narrowing in what could either be irritation or amusement. “Oh man, come on,” he said. “My report card? Don’t you think you’re taking this dad stuff a little seriously? I guess your girlfriend got it for you. Tell me, when do I get to meet my new mom?”

Gansey ignored the jibe. “If you don’t get a B by the end of this semester they’re kicking you out.”

Ronan snorted and returned to mutilating the dead skin of his heel.

“Ronan.”

“I don’t care.”

“I care.”

Ronan released his heel and looked at Gansey. His arms were crossed over his chest, his expression so severe that it was impossible not to take seriously. Ronan respected a man who could look like that while wearing a lavender polo shirt. He tore his gaze away, blinking hard. “I _can’t_ , man.”

“You can,” Gansey countered firmly. “You can, Ronan. I know it’s tough, but you’re strong. I know what you’re capable of. Show them. Show Aglionby and Declan and all those bastards.”

Ronan made a horrible sound between a scoff and a snort. “Fuck Declan.”

“Fine,” said Gansey impatiently. “Don’t do it for Declan. Do it for me, please. Better yet, do it for yourself. Come on. It’s only two years.”

 _Two years._ It sounded worse out loud. Ronan reached up to cover his ear with his headphones. He was just about to crank up _The Chieftains_ when he heard Gansey say, “No Aglionby, no Glendower.”

Ronan’s mouth fell open. _“What?”_

“You heard,” Gansey’s face was grim, fixed and unyielding. “You pass this year, or I do it alone. I’m not kidding, Lynch.”

Ronan’s jaw worked furiously. He thought his voice might snap with indignation as he forced his next words out. “You can’t do it alone. You’ve tried for five years and no joy. You need me around.”

“Then I’ll find someone else.”

Ronan told Gansey very precisely exactly what he thought of that idea.

“Well then,” Gansey slapped the knees of his khakis and stood up. “I guess we have a deal.”

He extended his hand in offer of a shake, withdrawing it sharply when Ronan went to bite it. He shook his head disappointedly as Ronan scowled at him.

“Animal,” he said.

“Republican,” Ronan countered.

Gansey frowned. “Harsh.”

In the end, Glendower beckoned. Ronan finished his homework, Gansey watching hoveringly over his shoulder, and then the two of them grabbed jackets and Gansey’s journal and headed for the Camaro. They had a new lead; strange sightings of sword carrying apparitions on a site that had once held a parish Church. Ronan suspected bullshit and privately Gansey agreed, however there was always a chance that the alleged ghosts were a product of the dormant ley line and, as Gansey told him very primly: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Gansey turned the key in the ignition and Ronan watched him out of the corner of his eye. If he had been his father, he would have been able to put into words everything that he wanted to say, there and then. Gansey’s hands, shaking with excitement and the jolt of the engine on the wheel. The darkness of the past few months and how they clawed at Ronan’s insides, promising yet darker times still. The sudden rush of gratitude he felt whenever he looked at Gansey or Monmouth or the Pig, the light that came pouring out of his eyes and ears and every window in the goddamn car, swearing hope and a brighter future, golden and glorious. He could have told him how thankful he was, and how before he had met him, he had never truly known what it was like to have a brother. But he was not his father.

“Can I drive?” he said instead.

“Not on your life,” replied Gansey easily.

The Camaro stuttered into being. Gansey’s foot lifted off the clutch and every thought Ronan had in that moment went with it as the princes of Virginia speeded down the road and towards the mountains, leaving the shadow of Henrietta behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Let me know here or alternatively come and say hi on [tumblr](http://scarlett-the-seachild.tumblr.com/)


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